Break No Bones Read Online Free PDF Page B

Peninsula, halfway between the Citadel and the historic district. Continuing on Highway 17, I found Rutledge Avenue, then wound through campus to the parking deck Emma had indicated.
    The sun warmed my neck and hair as I angled across Sabin Street to a massive brick building known simply as the main hospital. Folowing Emma's directions, I located the morgue entrance, climbed the ramp, and pressed a buzzer beside a rectangular speaker. In seconds a motor hummed, and one of two gray metal doors roled up.
    Emma looked awful.
    Her face was pale, her outfit rumpled. The bags under her eyes looked big enough to hold several changes of clothing.
    "Hey," she said quietly.
    "Hey." OK. It sounds odd. But that's how we Southerners greet.
    "Are you al right?" I asked, taking one of Emma's hands in mine.
    "Migraine."
    "This can wait."
    "I'm fine now."
    Emma hit a button and the door ground down behind me.
    "I'm not leaving town," I said. "We can do this when you feel better."
    "I'm fine." Soft, but alowing not an inch of wiggle room.
    Emma led me up another concrete ramp. Where the floor leveled, I could see two stainless steel compression doors that I guessed led to coolers. Ahead was a normal door, probably giving access to the more populated side of the hospital. ER. OB-GYN. ICU. Those working for life. We were on the flip side. The death side.
    Emma chin-cocked one of the metal doors. "We're in here."
    We crossed to it, and Emma puled the handle. Cold air whooshed over us, carrying the smel of refrigerated flesh and putrefaction.
    The room measured approximately sixteen by twenty, and held a dozen gurneys with removable trays. On six were body bags, some bulging, some barely humped.
    Emma chose a bag that looked piteously flat. Toeing the brake release, she wheeled the cart into the corridor as I held open the door of the room she had selected.
    An elevator took us to an upper floor. Autopsy suites. Locker room. Doors leading to places I couldn't identify. Emma said little. I didn't bother her with questions.
    As Emma and I changed from street clothes to scrubs, she explained that today would be my show. I was the anthropologist. She was the coroner. I would give orders. She would assist me. Later, she would incorporate my findings into a central case file with those of al other experts, and make a ruling.
    Returning to the autopsy room, Emma double-checked paperwork, wrote the case number on an ID card, and shot photos of the unopened body bag. I booted my laptop and arranged work sheets on a clipboard.
    "Case number?" I would use the Charleston County coroner's labeling system.
    Emma held up the ID card. "I coded it 02, undetermined. It's coroner death two seventy-seven this year."
    I entered CCC-2006020277 into my case form.
    Emma spread a sheet over the autopsy table and set a screen over the sink. Then we tied plastic aprons behind our necks and waists, secured masks over our mouths, and gloved.
    Emma unzipped the bag.
    The hair was in one smal plastic container, the isolated teeth in another. I set them on the counter.
    The skeleton was as I remembered, largely intact, with only a few vertebrae and the left tibia and femur connected by remnants of desiccated tissue. The disarticulated bones had been jumbled in transport.
    We began by extracting al visible insect inclusions and placing them in vials. Then Emma and I cleaned the dirt as best we could from every bone, colecting it for later inspection. As we progressed, I arranged elements in anatomical order on the sheet.
    By noon the painstaking process was done. Two tubs and four vials sat on the counter, and a skeleton lay on the table, hand and toe bones fanned like those of a specimen in a biosupply catalog.
    We broke for a quick cafeteria lunch. Emma had a large Coke and Jel-O. I had chips and a very questionable tuna sandwich. We were back in the autopsy suite by one.
    While I inventoried, identifying bones and separating right and left sides, Emma shot more photos. Then she